TV Ratings: Caitlyn Jenner's Reality Show Returns to Series Low

Caitlyn Jenner returned to E! on Sunday night with the sophomore season of I Am Cait. And the new run, which premiered with far less fanfare, was down in its first same-day showing.

Sunday's episode of I Am Cait brought in 745,000 viewers and a 0.3 rating among adults 18-49. That's down more than 500,000 from its freshman finale — and nearly 2 million off from the series launch.

The real measure of success for I Am Cait, like all series now, is how it performs after delayed viewing. And E!, for its part, attracts a significant number of Kardashian franchise viewers with encores. But I Am Cait's performance has been under a very particular kind of microscope since its 2015 premiere. Jenner had brought a record-setting audience for her 20/20 sit-down a few months previous, and the premiere set an ultimately unreasonably high bar for interest in the show.

I Am Cait's first episode brought in a strong sampling for E!, with an average 2.7 million viewers tuning in to that first episode and a 1.2 rating in the key demo, but the show's Sunday night audience quickly dipped — though no episode ever fell below the 1 million-viewer mark until the March 8 return.

All told, with live-plus-7 ratings, first-run telecasts of I Am Cait's eight-episode first season averaged 2.2 million viewers and a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49.